Someone asked me what books I recommend to other photographers. I'm leaving my own books off the list. But here is my favorite in each category for photographers who either want to work professionally or work with greater satisfaction in doing their personal art.

The first book is all about lighting. In fact, I think it's pretty much the best, comprehensive lighting book on the market today. It's not about specific brands or the latest techniques; it's much better than that. This book, now in it's 4th edition teaches you the theory of using light as a photographer. Read this and you WILL understand light. Also Fil Hunter and his crew do a great job making the subject readable. It's called Light, Science and Magic.

John Harrington has written the definitive, in-depth, nearly official book about the business of photography called, Best Business Practices for Photographers, Second Edition. John goes through step by step and explains how the business works, how to make money at it and how to stay out of legal trouble. The ASMP tried to write a book along the same lines. They should have just gone straight to John. I use this as a desk reference any time a business question comes up and I need to do it right. I know that not all the VSL readers do photography as a business but if you know someone who is entering the profession do them (and the rest of us working photographers) a favor and get them to buy this book. A lot of the advice crosses borders and might be just what you need to run your own business in a different way....

If you have lots of great ideas but you seem to have problems getting started, staying inspired and following through in your creative (or business) projects you probably need my favorite non-fiction book of all time, written by a writer who failed and failed until he finally understood the process of being successful and satisfied. It cured me of a very bad bout of anxiety. Really. A $9.95 book that worked better than therapy or drugs. I keep a few copies on hand for emergencies with other artist friends. You should too. It's called The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield. It's short, to the point and amazing. Two days ago a reader of the blog e-mailed me and recommended I read it. I agree, I'll go back and read it again...

I think I know a lot about portraits but I don't know as much as guy named Chris Grey. He writes really good stuff!!! His book, Master Lighting Guide for Portrait Photographers, is well written, well illustrated and provides a very good base for anyone who wants to do traditional portrait photography or is ready to do their own highly creative work but wants a good grounding in the nuts and bolts and the reasons behind the nuts and bolts. Chris has been making good books and good portraits for a long time. Take advantage of his foundation. I have three of his books. I read them every once in a while, just for technical inspiration..

The fifth book on the list is for all the people who are trying to do good work with speedlights. And by speedlights I mean portable, battery powered flashes that were originally designed to sit on top of cameras. There's a guy named Syl Arena who has written the definitive, highly illustrated and very well written Bible of lighting books for people who want to go far beyond the untidy world of web-flash-quasi-knowledge. It's all right there in Syl's book. Speedliter's Handbook: Learning to Craft Light with Canon Speedlites. Paul has my copy and won't give it back. The book is based around Canon flashes but don't let that dissuade you if you are a Nikon/Sony/Pentax/Olympus, etc. shooter. All the techniques are the same, you'll just have to figure out what stuff means the same in your camera flashes language. He will teach you how to make that stuff.....fun. Yes. I too hate the cover. But the insides are sooo good.

Finally, after all this technical reading you'll most likely want a nice palate cleanser. Something to refocus you on actual shooting. On the enjoyment of shooting. And what better way to do that than with an inexpensive, thick book by one of America's master street shooter, Elliott Erwitt? This is a compendium of hundreds of witty, wonderful and odd dog shots. It's called, Dog Dogs. I keep a copy in the car. It's fun to look at when I'm trapped somewhere and held against my will by the lure of commerce. I also have one in my studio. It's a happy testament to the fact that a body of work builds over time. Years and decades rather than weeks and months. At least the good stuff works that way. This is your intro to Erwitt, once you're hooked you'll move on to the more addictive stuff and someday you'll thank me...maybe.

That's enough for now, and a good start. Layer in some shooting between chapters and you'll have big fun. It's Summer! Time to read.

One of my favorite actors of all time, Martin Burke, will be starring in the one man play, Fully Committed, at the Zachary Scott Theatre, opening this evening. Last night was the dress rehearsal. The play is about the person in the basement office of an ultra-trendy, Manhattan restaurant whose job comprises sitting at a desk taking telephone reservations from a group of the most entitled, eccentric and sometimes sociopathic group of patrons imaginable. Martin plays both sides of every conversation, including conversations with the slimy head chef and the head waiter. At the same time he also fields calls from "friends" who are anxious to let him know they've landed acting jobs in parts that he also auditioned for.

Martin is amazing and the play is so much fun. So fun, in fact, that I was able to convince my 16 year old son to come with me. I was going to shoot images during the dress rehearsal that we'll be sending to the press today.

First, let's talk about the photography part. I would be covering one actor on a small stage. I wanted to try something a bit different and I'd been champing at bit to pit two of my favorite lenses against each other to see which would emerge triumphant. It wouldn't exactly be a fair fight as one lens would be on my Panasonic GH2 and the other on my Olympus EP3. What the Olympus has in design panache and build quality it gives back in resolution...Yes, that has been remedied in the OMD but I'm still holding out...

I wanted to shoot my Olympus 45mm 1.8 and my Olympus (old school Pen) 60mm 1.5. How would the ancient legacy lens do against the young favorite of the m4:3 crowd? How would I do pitting my skills in manually focusing against the fast sample rate and quick AF of the EP-3? Who would emerge as the top contender in the America's Top Small Camera Contest (A trademark of the Shooting with the Stars Corporation, ltd.)?????

I brought along the two bodies I mentioned, the two lenses I mentioned and also the Pan/Leica 25mm 1.4 and the Panasonic 14-45mm zoom, as well as two extra batteries per camera. Everything packed into one small Domke camera bag with room to spare. Lots of room to spare. Ben and I left the house a bit early and headed to the theatre. Little did we know that the city of Austin was hosting one of those "everyone-with-nothing-better-to-do-come-to-the-park-sit-on-the-grass-and-listen-to-jazz" things where hordes of people looking for free entertainment drive in from the suburban hinterlands, and fill all the roads between me and the theatre with hapless, confused and generally incompetent drivers who are afraid to make left hand turns.

Through a combination of patience and profanity in equal doses we were finally able to arrive at the theatre with five minutes to spare. Ben settled in to a comfy seat behind me and I got to work setting up my cameras. They were both set identically. ISO = 1250, manual shutter speeds, manual apertures. White balance set to tungsten. Noise reduction on stun (low) and each camera set to large, fine or extra fine jpegs. (The Panasonic has only "fine" as a choice...).

My routine with the Panasonic was to push in the little wheel on the back, top right of the camera which magnifies the finder image. I would fine focus the 60mm lens and then touch the shutter button which got me right back to the 100% finder image. Then I'd be able to shoot for a while without worrying about focus until Martin moved. The method was quick and pretty accurate. When I hit sharp focus the lens worked well. Most of the time I was shooting with the lens set to between f2 and f2.8.

My routine for using the Olympus was to evaluate exposure on the VF2 screen and then rely on the camera's autofocus for the heavy lifting. I even used the face detection AF for a number of the shots.

I think both cameras did well. The GH2 files seem a bit more solid and I find that I actually prefer to manually focus my lenses. Probably a holdover from the past. I was happy to see that neither camera seemed to struggle with noise at the 1250 ISO setting. I found the controls on the Panasonic, especially the push wheel for toggling between, and setting, aperture and shutter speed to be more usable than the two different dials on the EP3. I also found the files on the GH2 to be a bit cleaner and more robust. There is a color difference between the cameras but nothing that can't be duplicated or remedied in Lightroom or some other piece of software.

The big difference to me was in the lenses. I much prefer the look of the longer, 60mm lens. I think it has a sharpness and contrast that the other lens doesn't quite share. They are very, very close and by f2.8 and beyond you'd have to have your nose stuck to the front screen of your monitor to see the difference, but, at f2 the winner for contrast and center sharpness (to my eye) is the ancient metal beast of a lens. The 60mm f1.4.

The big caveat is the fact that it was used on a body with 24% more pixels.

Why use the smaller cameras when I have bigger, faster stuff? Because I wanted to and because the action in the play was constrained to a smaller space which meant fewer changes in focal length ranges were needed. The prime lenses are nicely sharp and gave me the opportunity to work at higher shutter speeds. That's always nice. Next time out I'm going to match up my old 70mm f2 against the 60mm 1.5 and see which one really is best. Nice to see Olympus re-introducing so many high speed primes. It's always a nice option in the age of relentless zooms.

The biggest issue I had, technically, last night was all the laughing. Most of the play is so funny that I found myself laughing out loud with the rest of the small (family and friends) audience. Hard to keep your equipment steady during a full out belly laugh. Ben thought the play we great as well. Score one for fighting against video games....

Both cameras made it through the show with their original batteries. Paranoia proved once again to be unnecessary.

I've already made reservations to go back and see the play again. All fun all the time.

Hope you've got your Summer in a good trajectory. It's not nearly as hot in Austin as it was this time last year. The lawns are green, the pools are cool and it's even possible to go (comfortably) for long walks. With a camera.